


Mentor

by Fyre



Series: Command [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 02:10:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2490617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the fall of SHIELD, Peggy Carter had an unexpected visitor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mentor

It was an awful day.

Rain was beating against the window, the sky iron-grey outside.

Peggy tracked a raindrop as it trickled from the top of the pane to the bottom. It brought to mind a game she had played with her brother, on rainy days, a lifetime ago. They would each pick a raindrop on the glass and shout and crow when their raindrop beat the other to the bottom of the frame.

It felt like it was only a moment ago, but it was such a long time. Time enough for her skin to become thin as gossamer and her senses to be dulled and quieted.

The monitor beside her bed was chirping softly. Her heartbeat, she knew. An age of machines, making sure she was still alive, where nurses would have been decades before.

She closed her eyes, just for a moment. Perhaps longer than a moment.

When she opened her eyes again, there was a man sitting beside the bed, chin resting on his chest, seemingly asleep.

He was in an orderly's uniform, but for all the time that had passed, she was still always and ever herself. Peggy Carter was not a woman who missed the little details. 

The man was sitting, when an orderly would not be permitted to do so. The man wore tinted glasses, indoors, which was uncommon except in celebrities. The man had bruises on his face, which spoke of recent violence.

Despite their best efforts to keep the news from her, her carers had not been able to keep her from watching the television.

"SHIELD or HYDRA?" she murmured.

The man raised his head, removing his glasses, and she recognised him. "Hey, boss."

"Nicholas," she said softly. She remembered reports, pictures from the funeral, the newspaper obituaries. "Pardon me, but I assumed you were dead."

One side of his mouth turned up. "Just call me your friendly neighbourhood ghost."

It would not be the first time she had seen people long-dead. Sometimes, they were real, like Steve. Other times, she saw Phillips in the face of her doctor, her cousins in the nurses, and once, a delivery man who was the unshaven double of Sergeant Barnes. 

She offered her hand to him, seeking assurance. His hand was warm and firm around hers. She could recall the first time they had met. His hand didn't quite engulf hers so much then. Now, her own fingers looked pale and fragile as fine china curled around his darker palm. 

"Not dead, then," she murmured.

"Not even a little," he agreed. "I'm sorry, Carter."

She moved her fingertips along the edge of his hand. "For what?"

"That this happened on my watch."

She squeezed his hand as hard as she could. "This was hardly your fault," she said. "We were the ones who invited them in. When you took the reins, the poison was already there, buried deep. You couldn't have saved it."

He looked down at their linked hands, covering them with his other hand. "I wanted to," he said. "Save what we could. Your golden boy said no."

Peggy wished she could smile, but she was dreadfully tired. "Yes, he would. We have quite a history against HYDRA, you know. We know what they were capable of." She pressed her fingertips against the side of his hand again. "Better to lance the wound, drain the poison. Tabula rasa is sometimes the best option."

One side of his mouth turned up. "You sound like him."

She laughed quietly. "Your exasperation is almost tangible, Nicholas," she murmured. "Did he dig in his heels? Stick out his jaw? Tell you where you could shove your ideals?"

He sat back in his seat, one hand still cradling hers. "All the things the showreels never showed," he said. "World tells you you've got a hold of one of the greatest soldiers who ever lived. Never told you he was an insubordinate son of a bitch. Was he always so stubborn?"

"Mm. To a fault," she agreed. "Reckless too. Part of his charm." She took a slow, wheezing breath, her chest tight. "I ought to have warned you, I suppose."

Nicholas didn't speak. Instead, he got up and lifted down her oxygen mask, and helped her set it on. "I don't think it would have helped," he said, as he set it around her nose and mouth. "That boy has a level of pig-headed that borders on award-winning."

Peggy caught his wrist before he could withdraw his hand. "You like him."

He looked down at her with his one good eye. The side of his mouth crooked up, and he sat down on the edge of the bed beside her. "Yeah," he said. "He's damn good at what he does, even if I want to kick his ass half the time."

"Another of his gifts," she chuckled. "He always knows how to annoy people the most." She released his arm, and subsided back against the pillows. "Is he working with you now?"

Nicholas shook his head. "We both got things we need to do," he said, meeting her eyes with a look that was too honest, the look of a skilled liar, and that filled her with trepidation.

"What is he up to?" she asked, watching him intently. 

"Can't tell you that," he said, "I don't know the details, and he wasn't exactly forthcoming."

She breathed deeply, the oxygen easing some of the tightness in her chest. "Something foolish, no doubt," she said quietly. She patted Nicholas's hand. "If you can keep eyes on him, I would consider it a kindness."

Nicholas lifted her hand gently and kissed her knuckles, an old-fashioned courtesy. "You know it, boss."


End file.
